The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1887-10-22
sumAc4 GATHERING IN VIRGINIA.
A Profitable Industry for Hardy Mount


A Profitable Industry for Hardy Mount
aineers-Crops aud Prices
wildwood (Tsl Cor Chicago Journal
Sumach gathering has grown into az
industry of considerable magnitude IL
the Virginia mountains Of late years
/ The bush is most abundant on th'
rocky and uncultivated mountain side
where no crop Of grain could be grown
Providence, it would seem, has es
pecially designed that the mountalneel
should not be forgotten in the universal
economy of nature, and that he should
find subsistence ready at his cabin door.
The season for picking the leaf lasts
about three months in the year, begin
ming in the latter part of June. The
first frost renders the leaves unit Tor
use.
The product is hauled sometimes as
far as nifty miles, often over rough and
stony roads, in the ancient vehicles of
the mountaineerS. to some mill or con-
venient shipping point. For the dry
and cured leaf they receive 81 hun
dred weight At this rate, although it
is smaller, the pickers allege, than the
mill men could with Justice give, the
gathering of this wild leaf is much more
profitable than raising grain in the rich
valleys, where drought a fict the farm
ers The wife and children of the mount
aineer assist him in gathering the leaves,
and little girl of 10 becomes as dexter
Gus in stripping the bushes as grown
man of %. Each can earn s. day.
Expert gatherers have been known to
STRIP O. leaves, which when cured have
weighed 800 pounds. One man living at
the top of the Blue Ridge, near
Manassas Gap, has picked this season
twenty tons and realized 800. 1t Is
impossible to estimate the amount Of
comfort given these poor people by this
source of revenue. Their fathers, in
ignorance of the wealth at their doors,
lived precariOus existence, chiefly by
hunting and fishing, and partly by rails
ing on the thin soil little patches Of
buckWheat.
Most of the sumach gathered in
Virginia finds market in the morocco
factories of Wilmington, Del 1t is used
to retain the rich coloring of the leather
impaired by the tanning properties of
the black oak bark. The only rival of the
irginia sumach is that imported from
Sicily. The American article is richer
in tannlc acid than the Sicilian, but the
imported leaf commands the highest
price for the reason that, as yet, the
the Importance OF keeping their leaves as
free from sand and grit as do the care s
full italians. The leather dealer says
that the least speck of dirt CT grit makes
a flaw in the leather. The Italian leaf
if used by the print cloths factories of
New England. Print cloths soaked in a
solution of sumach retain their dyes
through all conditions of exposure to
weather.
The bush in the Virginia mountains
is known as the ''staghorn sumach" 1t
grows in great luxuriance until the
leaves have been stripped off for several
when the bush will die if let
alone. In this emergency the mount
aineer bitches his horse to a long,
narrow pointed shovel pillow called a
'bull-tongue, and plows about the
roots, breaking and tearing them apart.
From the torn roots fresh bushes spring
up, and the next season a crop of
leaves thicker and darker than ever
amply rewards his homely toll.